IDFA 2010
Into the Belly of the Whale
Ela batn el-hoot
Hazim Bitar
Jordan
2010
24 min
European Premiere
An extensive tunnel system lies hidden 100 feet belowground in the border zone between Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Palestinians use the tunnel to avoid Israeli border controls and buy medicines and other goods in Egypt. But every journey through a tunnel is fraught with the dangers of collapse or suffocation. This film deals with the return journey of Younis, who ends up trapped in the middle of the "Whale" tunnel after an Israeli attack. Hazim Bitar's can be interpreted as an analogy for the labyrinthine reality in which many Palestinians exist: trapped, sometimes suffocating, and with no light at the end of the tunnel. The film is fictional, but the reality on which it is based most certainly is not. In an ironic and poignant reversal, Bitar takes the biblical story of Jonah and the Whale to illustrate the Palestinians' awful plight. In a similar way, Avi Mograbi turned the history of Israel on its head in (2005), to highlight its warmongering and tyrannical behavior.
Credits
Screening copy
Amman Filmmakers Cooperative
Amman Filmmakers Cooperative
World Sales
Amman Filmmakers Cooperative
Amman Filmmakers Cooperative
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Cinematography
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Narrator